old games

statico on 2005-04-20T04:33:29

Exploring Flickr reveals all sorts of interesting things. Recently I stumbled accross images of an old game called ChipWits for early versions of the Mac OS:

"Chipwits consisted of a number of “environments” or rooms with different layouts and different obstacles. The object was to program the chipwit to navigate the room, zapping bugs, eating pie, and turning when necessary before his energy level ran low.

"The programming was done, in typical Macintosh fashion, by dragging tiles around into logic arrays, then saving them and running the chipwit in a room. This was an interpreted environment so if the chipwit ran into problems a few clicks and you were back in his brain futzing with his logic."

Soooo cool -- it's got that "I'm building a circuit" breadboard feel to it. I bet it'd be fun to implement as well as fun to play around with.

At the bottom of that page is a link to the Macintosh Garden, which lists many classic games, including my old favorites. Scarab of RA is actually still shareware, and Netrek now has a color version.

I love the old Mac OS Classic games, as they're mostly what I grew up on besides having a Game Boy. The retro games are also inspiring, since they had original ideas instead of relying on the latest 3D engine. Mmmm... sprites...

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viva la nostalgia

Allison on 2005-04-21T18:03:23

"The programming was done, in typical Macintosh fashion, by dragging tiles around into logic arrays, then saving them and running the chipwit in a room. This was an interpreted environment so if the chipwit ran into problems a few clicks and you were back in his brain futzing with his logic."

I love ChipWits! It was actually my first "programming" environment way back in early elementary school. It's on my long-term list of programming projects I'd like to get to someday. (Maybe in ParrotCocoa? :)